photo by ellasdad

There are times when you need to play a different game.  When the current playing field is too crowded, too much of a commodity or just not a great place to be, you need to change the rules.  When you’re vulnerable to changes and competition…you need to play a different game.

I’ve been enjoying some great discussions in a Competitive Advantage training  course I’m taking from Sean Stormes.  Sean has a really interesting perspective as a life long sales guy, sales manager, sales trainer, etc.  Companies are approaching him to get help with sales training…and he’s telling them that sales training likely isn’t their issue – they need to be playing a different game.  They need a competitive advantage.

It doesn’t matter how good a salesman you are if you aren’t selling a product or service that’s different than the competition in a meaningful way (meaningful according to your customers in case you were wondering).  If the perception from the customer is that you’re basically the same as your competition…all you have left to compete on is price (and that’s a bad place to be).

The good news is that there’s an alternative.

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  photo by randysonofrobert 

If you want to use social media for your business, you’ve got to be consistent.  Your social media presence is a garden and if you want your garden to look good and grow, you’ve got to routinely maintain it. 

You need to water your garden, trim and prune the plants, create new beds, add more plants – there’s lots of work to do.  But to keep that garden healthy and growing, you can’t do a burst of work, then wait a month before you do something else and expect to have much staying alive.

The first thing you have to do is have a social media plan that you can live with – don’t sign up for more than you’re going to be able to live up to on a regular basis.  The other thing you need are some tools that can help you stay on top of things.  The good news is there are a lot of tools that can help you maintain that consistent presence.

Here are a couple that I use:

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  photo by annia316 

A lot of business owners talk about growing their business by networking.  You imagine a crowded chamber after hours meeting and it’s hard to picture generating business in that kind of setting.

The reality is you can’t (or at least it’s unlikely).

What you can do at those kinds of events is meet new people and determine if they have any potential to collaborate with you in the future.  If they do and you can develop a mutually beneficial win-win relationship  over time with someone you get to Know, Like and Trust.

THEN you have some good potential to generate new business from networking!

I had a great demonstration of this the other day over coffee.

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  photo by ZEDZAP>Nick 

I’ve known Walt for quite a while.  He’s a great guy – warm, genuine, the kind of person that you enjoy catching up with.  He was a consultant and I was the client when we first met – then we briefly worked at the same consulting company and have stayed in touch off and on for several years.

Like a lot of people, Walt reached a point in his career when he looked around and asked: “Is this it?”.  He was making good money, but his work was empty of meaning and it felt like a dead end. 

Unlike a lot of people, Walt decided to do something about his situation.  He had previous volunteer experience as a family counselor, working with at-risk kids and he really got a lot out of tangibly helping people in need.  So he made a big leap, signed up for additional training and ultimately created a business out of counseling and therapy for low income at-risk kids and their families.

When I caught up with Walt over the summer, he was considering my help with a very common growth problem that a lot of business owners face.

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